This week I had the opportunity to present at a MelBIM forum. If you’ve been to an event by MelBIM, or its sister groups interstate, you’ll know what a fantastic atmosphere it is when you put two hundred or more BIM specialists in a room and talk about the latest leaps being made by this ever-growing technology.
I’ll cheerfully acknowledge that my presentation didn’t hit the same excitement levels as (say) drone footage showing a floor-by-floor view of a prospective high-rise site! But alongside the well-justified excitement, it’s also important to turn our minds to the legal and practical underpinnings that are needed to support the growth of BIM.
Anecdotally, it seems that many projects are adopting BIM without a clear, documented plan for how it will be used. The 1000+ consultancy agreements sent to our contract review service each year seldom mention BIM specifically, and it’s even rarer for a BIM execution plan or protocol to be annexed to the contract.
Why do you need a BIM plan or protocol? Firstly, to give your role enough specificity for you to accurately price and plan. Secondly, to create a consistent system imposed on all contributors to the model. Thirdly, as a reference point to resolve misunderstandings, and, if need be, to determine each party’s responsibility and liability in the event of an error.
As a starting point, some key topics to cover in a BIM protocol are:
- Required level of BIM output. (Level 2? Level 3?)
- Required software and systems
- Level of development required for each stage, plus how the level of development is defined and measured
- Procedure and schedule for federation of models and clash resolution
- Copyright licences and moral rights consents sufficient to allow all contributors to use and modify each other’s models as required for the purposes of the project
- The powers of the overarching manager of the BIM model (if there is one).
Consultants and clients who do not already have a BIM protocol can draw guidance from a number of different templates, many of which are freely available:
- NATSPEC – National BIM Guide and BIM Management Plan
- Construction Industry Council (UK) – BIM Protocol (2013)
- American Institute of Architects – BIM and Digital Data Exhibit (E203-2013)
- RIBA – BIM Overlay (2012)
Having a plan is only the first step. To be effective, the same BIM protocol should be included in the contracts of all the BIM participants, so that everyone is working under the same parameters. The Construction Industry Council (UK)’s BIM Protocol includes example contract provisions for incorporating some basic BIM provisions into a consultancy agreement.
The future calls for something larger and broader than a BIM execution plan. We need to consolidate the best ideas from the UK, the US and locally to create a common language and a common procedure, so that consultants can work smoothly across all projects. Should model elements be measured by “level of development”, “level of detail” or “level of information”? Can we develop commonplace procedures for federation and clash resolution?
At MelBIM, we talked about work that is already being done – like the creation of the new Australasian BIM Advisory Board (ABAB), or the BIM Knowledge and Skills Framework launched in May by APCC and Building Smart. I’m more conscious than ever of how important this work is.
From the 19th century until the mid 1990s, travelling from Australia’s west coast to its east required changing trains as many as six times, because of the different gauges adopted in various regions. Reaching consensus is hard, especially when the technology is new and rapidly evolving and every player wants to pursue their own idea of what’s best. But working around incompatible systems is even harder, and now is our opportunity to get on the same gauge with BIM.
Wendy Poulton
Risk Manager, informed